How To Improve As Subtlety Rogue — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.1)
On this page, you will find out how you can improve at playing Subtlety Rogue in World of Warcraft — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.1). We list the common mistakes that you should try to avoid and the small details that can greatly improve your performance.
Cooldowns
Subtlety Rogue is all about maximizing short burst windows. Making sure every cast of 
Shadow Blades has 2 casts of 
Shadow Dance
is key to this, while also making sure you are not casting combo point generators while at full combo points or casting finishing moves while having lower than 6
combo points. You can read more about it in the rotation page linked below.
Knowing How To Sim Yourself
It is impossible to correctly play and optimize a Subtlety Rogue without using Raidbots to sim your own character, there are simply too many variables involved to intuitively figure out what gear to wear and so on without simming it first. Generally speaking, a simulation should be the first and final say in the gear you end up wearing for any given situation.
On top of this, simming is now very easy, with no need to understand SimulationCraft APLs or installation yourself. All you will need is the in-game SimulationCraft AddOn, and the Raidbots website. Below, you can find a video on how to sim your own character using the website.
Changelog
- 10 Feb. 2026: Updated for Midnight.
- 30 Nov. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.7.
- 05 Oct. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.5.
- 04 Aug. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.
- 15 Jun. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.7.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.1.5.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 22 Aug. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Pre-Patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Season 4
- 20 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Reviewed for patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Page reviewed and updated for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Rogue Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Eleem, who has been a rogue player, enjoyer and theorycrafter since Legion. He is currently raiding in a top 100 guild and has been known to dabble in Mythic+ from time to time. You can find him in the Ravenholdt Discord as Eleem.
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